


the road back to where we belong

by aimerai



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, this was definitely inspired by a conversation about people with mismatched love languages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 05:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19166908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimerai/pseuds/aimerai
Summary: Mat’s lucky his right hand is the one that he used to grab Dante, all those years ago. Most people ask him if he shook hands with his soulmate, and he can say that it was something like that, while smiling convincingly enough at them. The truth is, he’s not even sure Dante remembers that Mat had grabbed Dante that first time to keep Dante from tripping and falling, pulling him closer. It feels like a fitting way to start their story.Mat feels like he’s going to spend the rest of his life trying to pull Dante closer.





	the road back to where we belong

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to Ash, Ellie, Nat, and Heather who read over this ages ago, and an extra-special thanks to Heather for helping with the title, which comes from Vancouver Sleep Clinic's Killing Me To Love You, because I could afford to work on my subtlety ;)  
> This was a prompt fill that got very, very out of hand. Hence the length.

Mat’s lucky his right hand is the one that he used to grab Dante, all those years ago. Most people ask him if he shook hands with his soulmate, and he can say that it was something like that, while smiling convincingly enough at them. The truth is, he’s not even sure Dante remembers that Mat had grabbed Dante that first time to keep Dante from tripping and falling, pulling him closer. It feels like a fitting way to start their story.

Mat feels like he’s going to spend the rest of his life trying to pull Dante closer. After all, it’s what their marks symbolise, and he knows he cares way too much about soulmarks, but he wishes it didn’t constantly feel like Dante was slipping through Mat’s fingers. They could’ve both gone NCAA, but Mat chose the Thunderbirds. They could’ve both gone to the Thunderbirds, but Dante picked the NCAA. Mat got drafted to the Islanders, and Dante got drafted to a team halfway across the country, and that was out of their control. But then Mat finally makes his way up to the big leagues, and Dante chooses to finish school. He doesn’t even know how he’s kept Dante all these years, wonders if they’d be friends still if not for the soulmarks, and then feels ungrateful for thinking about it like that. Dante does care. He has to, right?

That’s Mat being ungrateful again, because he knows Dante cares, but the way Dante cares doesn’t make sense to Mat at all. Mat doesn't know what he means to Dante. Mat doesn’t know, and he’s too afraid to ask, and it’s killing him a little. A lot. It’s killing him a lot, and the only reason he’s thinking about it is because he’s been drinking some top-shelf stuff. It’s an anniversary of sorts, almost, and he’s alone in the empty apartment he bought himself. Dante is still in Boston, but Mat’s already back in BC. He won’t call Dante, though, because Dante has exams and friends and a life back in Boston that Mat isn’t part of, and because if he calls Dante, he might tell him about all of this and then Dante will really be disappointed in him, because Mat is being clingy and irrational, and he knows it, but Dante is his soulmate.

He opens his phone anyway, thinks of sending a text to Dante, just wondering what he’s up to, but Dante texts him like he knew Mat was thinking of him. Mat goes to open the text, but he ends up pressing dial and doesn’t realise till the call goes through. It’s too late to hang up, because Dante picks up immediately. Mat can’t even use his phone properly.

“Hi Mat,” Dante says, and he sounds so happy that Mat is involuntarily smiling at his half-full glass.

“Hey Dante,” Mat says, and he sounds way more wasted than he thought he was. He thought he was tipsy, but he’s edging towards full drunk, his true emotions obvious in his voice the way they never are sober, because Mat knows how to keep a lid on it.

“Happy anniversary,” Dante says. “Or like, not for you yet but it’s past midnight here and I don’t know if I can stay up till 3am. I'll try if you really want me to, though.”

“Anniversary?” Mat says, through lips gone numb.

Dante sounds a little sheepish. “It is, right? Ten years, to the day. The aluminium one.”

“I didn’t know you kept track,” Mat says and now he feels kinda shitty, drinking alone and already drunk and it’s not even the day while Dante apparently stayed up just to wish him.

“Mat,” Dante says, and he sounds funny in a way Mat can't describe but knows is less happy. “Of course I would. It’s ten years of both of us.”

“There’s an us?” Mat asks, before he can self-edit. He’s drunk but even he knows that it’s a misstep, and so fucking untrue.

Dante sounds a lot less happy now, but he doesn’t sound mad. Mat thinks he would be furious, if Dante ever said something like that to him, but they’re not the same at all for soulmate things, so he can’t say he’s surprised. “Mat, can I FaceTime you?”

“Sure,” Mat says, because he can’t say anything else when his mouth has gotten him into this mess, and the request pops up immediately.

When he answers, Dante shows up on the screen, somewhere surprisingly well lit, his hair looking like he’s been running his fingers through it, more unruly than usual. He looks stressed and visibly exhausted, and Mat wants nothing more than to crawl into bed with him just to make sure he’s getting enough sleep. Or barring that, he wants to at least get on a goddamn plane and see him. He doesn’t know what it would do, except that he wants to, even though he’ll be more of a distraction than not.

Dante musters up a smile seeing Mat, but it fades quickly. “Mat, you know there’s an us, right?” he says, and he sounds so serious and so believing, and Mat doesn’t understand. It didn’t feel like Dante cared as much, but then he wouldn’t have answered the call. Wouldn’t have remembered that it’s been ten years since they gave each other matching red handprints. Wouldn’t be affirming that there’s an us to them.

“I didn’t mean it the way it came out,” Mat says, because if he can take it back they don’t have to talk about this on their tenth anniversary, because he can’t see it ending any way but unhappily.

Dante sucks on his lower lip and runs his free hand through his hair, messing it up further, showing off the hand print encircling his left wrist like a manacle. “How did you mean it, Mat?”

Dante isn’t giving him an easy out here. Mat fumbles with the words, but comes up empty, a long silence where he’s the sole focus of Dante’s attention. He reaches for the glass instead and takes a sip to brace himself, but Dante catches on immediately

“Are you drunk?” Dante asks. He doesn’t sound accusing, just thoughtful and a little worried.

Mat shakes his head. “Not really.” 

“Mat, are you okay? It’s barely nine there.”

Mat shrugs. He doesn’t know what answer Dante wants and Dante doesn’t seem to be gunning for a fight, but he just doesn’t know. “I just miss you,” he says plaintively. “I don’t know if I’m allowed.”

Dante’s face looks visibly devastated. This is worse than if Mat had shot him, the look on his face, hurt and disbelief warring with each other. “Mat. Mat, what do you think you are to me?”

“Your soulmate?” Mat answers, because that is fairly obvious. "What else is there?”

Dante closes his eyes and swallows, lashes casting shadows under his eyes. “Mat,” he says, his voice measured and tight. A ‘we’re down by two but we have a period left to play and we can do this’ voice. “I know I’m not great at words, but you’re...”

He shakes his head and looks back at Mat, frustrated. “You’re everything to me. I thought you knew.”

“Because we’re soulmates,” Mat finishes.

“Because you’re you,” Dante corrects. “We have marks and they match. Cool. Great. But I’d rather not have the marks and have you. A mark’s just a mark, but you’re you. And I--”

He cuts himself off again, and smiles a little wryly. “I don’t even know if I’m making sense, but you have to know I love you. You’re the best part of my summers and it’s great that we’re soulmates, but there would be an us anyway. Or--I’d want there to be an us.”

“Me too,” Mat says, because Dante looks nervous, and he shouldn’t when he’s said all these things that Mat's been waiting to hear for forever and a day, from the first time they touched. Mat honestly feels a little stupid, now, for thinking that Dante doesn’t care, because he obviously cares. He cares so much. It's written all over his face and the way he said it like it hurt that Mat didn’t already know.

Dante sighs like he's relieved, slumping back a little. "You do know I love you, right?"

"Yeah," Mat says. Doesn't add the 'I know now' because it'll only hurt both of them. He thought, even before, but it's something different to know, because Dante has said it, even if Mat doesn't know how he means it. Love can mean anything; love can be everything, and Dante doesn't seem to treat him any different. Mat buys into grand romances. Dante doesn’t. Mat doesn’t know what a love like that would look like on Dante, because the love he gives Mat is like a security blanket. He doesn’t really know if Dante does romance, just that he doesn’t do grand romance. He wants to know, though. Not all soulmates are romantic, but he wants to know, because Dante’s love still isn't something Mat can touch and understand.

It’s like Dante knows what Mat is thinking. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

Mat freezes, and Dante makes a quiet sound that Mat thinks is going to be pressed into his memory forever. This is awful. He wishes he were sober for this conversation.

“What do I have to do to prove it to you?” Dante asks, and he sounds so fucking hopeless that it’s all the proof that Mat really needs, or ever will need. Maybe it’s not Mat’s kind of love, but even if it isn't, Mat is taking it far too lightly.

“You don’t,” Mat says. “I’m just being me.”

Dante just looks at him with a capital-L Look, till Mat feels defensive about it. “What?”

“Sometimes, you're such an idiot,” Dante tells him. “Let me rephrase: I don't have to prove it to you, but I want to, because I hate that you ever doubted it at all.”

He's blushing bright red and honestly, this might be the most feelings sharing that they've done about each other since the time they were screaming at each other about where Dante was going to go play. That time didn't involve even an ounce of the vulnerability Mat’s feeling now, and he doesn't know if Dante’s ever told him so much about the bond and them and how he feels. Dante is an open book except for when it comes to these kinds of things; he keeps his love close. Mat doesn’t understand him, and never has, not like this. He knows Dante likes him close, but he doesn’t know what that means. Dante’s never told him what he wants.

“I don't need it now,” Mat says, and hopes Dante believes him.

He doesn’t. His jaw does a thing, and Dante can be as headstrong as Mat. More, even. Mat hasn’t seen this face in years, and Mat is tired and drunk and--

“Dante,” he says, softly, and Dante’s face modulates, still stubborn, but somehow not as fierce. This is a Dante who will yield, who Mat can coax down. “You don’t talk, you know.”

Dante opens his mouth but Mat cuts him off before he can even start. “I mean, you don’t talk about soulmate things, or things that matter, and I need that.”

Dante sits there, frowning at Mat. “I didn’t know.”

“I mean, I never told you,” Mat says. He didn’t want to appear too needy, and it’s not like Dante isn’t wonderful, but it makes being apart so hard, because Dante is inscrutable over text. “I thought it would be too much.”

“So, should I tell you I love you every day?” Dante asks, all focus.

If Mat told him yes, right now, he’d do it without question and mean it every time, because Dante is like that. But Mat’s heart wouldn't be able to take hearing it every day, and it's already struggling, going dangerously fast. Has been for most of this conversation, partly fear, mostly elation.

Mat licks his lips. “Don't do that.”

“So what should I do?” Dante asks.

“Just talk more,” Mat says.

“Like what? Like, do you want to hear that I think about you every time I see my wrist?” Dante asks, and his face is so red but he's still talking. “Or that sometimes I miss you so much it hurts? Because I'd do anything to have you here right now.”

Mat is not sure he's still breathing, pulse thundering in his ears. “I could fly out.”

He'd been thinking of it as a ridiculous idea earlier but the way Dante lights up, despite the bags under his eyes. Yeah, it's not ridiculous at all.

“Would you?”

“I thought about it earlier,” Mat admits, and Dante’s almost glowing, wanting. How could Mat have thought it was a stupid idea at all? “You sure you want me around even with finals?”

Dante shrugs off finals like they're nothing. “I always want you around, finals can deal.”

“Then I’ll come,” Mat says, like it’s that easy, but it is. “We can come back home together.”

Dante’s smiling at him like--Mat doesn’t know what to call that look, just that it warms him up, makes his face feel hot enough that he's sure Dante will notice. “I’d like that.”

It's weird, Mat thinks distantly, that it wasn't a ‘that'd be sick, bro.’ Not a bad weird, and not worth focusing on when he has tickets to book and bags to pack, but still weird.

Dante yawns in the middle of Mat trying to remember what he needs to pack, and Mat blinks and looks at the time. “Shit, you should be asleep right now.”

“’S fine,” Dante says, around another yawn that practically cracks his jaw. “Needed to talk to you.”

“More than you needed to sleep?” Mat asks dryly, back on familiar ground.

Dante wrinkles his nose. “It's our anniversary, and I wanted.”

Mat doesn’t know what to say to that, just smiles, probably like an idiot. “I’ll be out on the earliest flight I can get.”

“Perfect,” Dante says, before beaming. “We’ll get to spend our anniversary together.”

“What, are you planning something nice?” Mat asks, more because he can than because he’s expecting it.

Dante shrugs. “I’d rather stay in and spend time with you. I miss the way your--” He cuts himself off, but Mat knows just what kind of thing it would have been.

“Soft. So fucking soft.”

“I didn’t get to finish, but I’m not going to be sorry about being soft about you,” Dante says, and he’s yawning again, and Mat should really have sent him to bed a while ago, but he’s going to hoard every minute of Dante he can get, never mind that he’s going to see him tomorrow. “Hey, ’m gonna go back to my room, but if I put in my earphones and hide under the covers I can talk to you till I fall asleep? Just make sure you text me your flight details.”

Dante falls asleep maybe ten minutes after he ends up in his bed, and Mat’s pretty sure he just made it through their conversation through sheer stubbornness. He’s smiling down at his phone like an idiot, anyway, but there’s no one to see him in his apartment, still kinda tipsy, but some of that has to be the joy, the invincibility that comes with knowing that Dante loves him. Maybe not Mat’s kind of love, but love enough that Mat can fly to the other side of the country just because Dante wants him there.

**Author's Note:**

> -I might come back to this to make this like. a full thing. but I do not make promises about that because I don't know what finishing a fic is.  
> -mat's love language is words of affirmation with a side of acts of service. dante's is mostly quality time. they're very good at talking without communicating.  
> -this is meant to be set during the tail end of last season. it could've been this season but sometime between when i started this and now, dante signed with the preds, so last season it is.  
> -@aimeraiwrites on tumblr, @aimerai1419 on twitter on a locked account, so message me first  
> -thanks for reading!


End file.
